CHICAGO, IL (June 23, 2017) — Covenanters routinely share links to social media articles and videos that Covenant News Service believes may be of interest to others. Each Friday we post five of them. Following is a sample of those submissions—their inclusion does not represent an endorsement by the Covenant of any views expressed.
Kung Fu-trained Nuns Bike the Himalayas to Oppose Human Trafficking
This is the fourth time the nuns have made the journey to raise awareness about human trafficking. Just praying isn’t enough, they say.
From the article: Five hundred nuns from the Buddhist sect known as the Drukpa Order, on Saturday complete a 4,000-km (2,485 mile) bicycle trek from Nepal’s Kathmandu to the northern city of Leh in India to raise awareness about human trafficking in the remote region.
“When we were doing relief work in Nepal after the earthquakes last year, we heard how girls from poor families were being sold because their parents could not afford to keep them anymore,” 22-year-old nun Jigme Konchok Lhamo told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Evangelical Leaders Push for Criminal Justice Reform
The church leaders are calling on Christians and the government to pursue restorative justice rather than punishment. According to a new Barna poll, 53 percent of practicing Christians favor a less gracious response,
From the article: National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson challenged churches to do more than sign the declaration but also take action steps to address racial inequities and work for alternatives such as drug courts and mental health courts to keep people out of prison.
“What if all of our churches were to adopt one incarcerated person?” he asked. “What if all of our churches would service one family where a family member is incarcerated? What if all of our churches would care for one victim?”
16 Facebook Accounts that Will Make You Smarter
There are studies that say studying on Facebook can be a good thing. So you’re not really wasting time on the social media site – at least not when you’re checking out these 16 Facebook pages and groups. Some of them are quite serious and others, not so much.
From the article: While you may feel that your hours spent commenting, liking, and sharing on Facebook are mindlessly wasted, numerous studies have shown a link between social media use and boosts in intelligence and the brain’s all-important grey matter.
The Ways Your Brain Manages Overload and How to Improve Them
Hey, it’s from Harvard. They know a lot about being brainy. There’s also some advice you might want to consider when you’re studying on one of the 16 Facebook sites mentioned above.
From the article: Information overload is everywhere, from non-stop news to rat-a-tat email inboxes. At the receiving end of this deluge of verbiage is the human brain—your brain— metaphorically endowed with a vacuum cleaner that sucks up information; a container for short-term memory; a blender for integrating information; a memory bank for storing long-term information; a garbage disposal for getting rid of information; and a recycling machine extraordinaire. Using each of these functions effectively is critical if one wants to manage information overload ̶ simply using your brain for crossing items off your to-do list is poor use of a very sophisticated machine. Yet few people build the habits and lifestyles that allow for their brains to function at their best.
At the core of managing information overload is the ability to know which function to use, and how and when to use it. The six principles below can serve as a guide to the proper brain hygiene for managing information overload on a busy work day.
Will She Be First Female NFL Kicker?
The hardest test she may face in pursuing the NFL is acceptance – possibly more by the public than the players. Her college teammates have welcomed her.
“If you can play football and you have determination, I don’t care what your gender is,” says Timm Rosenbach, a former NFL quarterback and the head coach at Adams State. “And Becca can play, simple as that. She’s got accuracy and she’s got a powerful leg, which will only get stronger. We brought her to Adams State for a reason: to compete for a job and help us win football games.”
